More than fourteen months ago, under the title “Mass Hysteria As A Political Strategy Is Time-Bound” I urged the sitting Federal Government of Nigeria to tune off its electoral campaign politics and face the hard task of governing religion-plural and multi-ethnic group Nigeria, with a view to assuaging the hard times Nigerians were going through. What I wrote then and its relevance today permits extensive reproduction:
In the run-up to the 2015 Presidential Election General Muhammadu Buhari tasked one of his associates, Professor Femi Olufunmilade, Head of Department of International Relations and Strategic Studies, and Sub-Dean of the School of Post Graduate Studies and Research of Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, to help him craft an electoral strategy that could unseat President Goodluck Jonathan. Olufunmilade obliged him with a strategy paper that outlined how Frederick Chiluba, John Kufour, Abdoulaye Wade, Mwai Kibaki, Yayi Boni, Ernest Bai Koroma, Alhassan Quattara and Peter Mutharika were able to oust sitting incumbents in Zambia, 1991; Ghana, 2000; Senegal, 2000; Kenya, 2002; Benin Republic, 2006; Sierra Leone, 2007; Cote d’Ivoire, 2010 and Malawi, 2014 respectively.
In all of the cases above, the incoming leaders accused the sitting parties of widespread corruption, mismanagement and nepotism, and promised radical changes chief of which would be retrieval of stolen monies from the agents of the previous governments. In none of those countries was money retrieved. As a matter of fact, in none of those countries was any serious prosecution undertaken.
Having been shown what to do in Nigeria, apparatchiks of the All Progressives Congress (APC) went to town in a whispering, nay shouting, campaign that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had stolen the Treasury dry, and promised that they would retrieve monies that had been stolen. Fantastic amounts were boldly mentioned. In order not to be outdone, Adam Oshiomhole told the media that an American official confided in him that one former minister in the Jonathan cabinet stole five billion dollars. The Americans categorically denied that anyone told him so. He swallowed his pride with raw egg on his face and did not dare to continue the discussion.
It is one thing to apply an idea that worked somewhere for a specific gain, it is another to keep a nation at standstill on the basis of that concocted strategy. It appears that President Buhari and the APC have forgotten that the many allegations they made were to whip up mass hysteria to sweep them into office. The only person that they have been able to pin something on is former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, who is alleged to have diverted monies meant to procure arms to fight the Boko Haram insurgency in the north east to PDP stalwarts in the run-up to the 2015 Presidential Election. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been busy locking up suspects and making them pay back what was given to them. The main supposed distributor has been clamouring for his day in court but the Federal Government has refused to produce him in court for months on end. That is not what a party that is righteous and want to prove a point does. The Federal Government, in this instance, appears to be the party that has something to hide. It is the Federal Government that sought a secret trial, which the courts rightly refused. It is the suspected criminal that is insisting on an open trial. Something does not ring right here.
Every Nigerian government since independence has been accused of corruption. It was the chief reason Kaduna Nzeogwu gave for the January 15 1966 putsch that overthrew the Tafawa Balewa government. After General Yakubu Gowon was toppled in 1975 the nation was treated to the drama of probes that saw to the confiscation of landed properties belonging to members of his regime, including military governors. After Alhaji Shehu Shagari was overthrown in 1983 by the present President it was another round of circus that saw military tribunals handing down two hundred years sentences in some instances. The governments of generals Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalami, Obasanjo were alleged to have robbed the national till. After President Umaru Yar’Adua took ill in 2009 his signature was procured for the National Appropriation Act of 2009. The rumour mill says emphatically that the man was in coma and that his signature was forged so that the many things already padded into the Appropriation Act could be taken out. If Nigeria has had such a chequered history of being “fantastically corrupt” as David Cameron, the Prime Minister was caught on camera saying, and with President Buhari agreeing with him, it would amount to a mind-blowing miracle if members of Jonathan’s government did not also dip their hands where they should not have. Saying that corruption went on under Jonathan is not saying anything new. If there is evidence that some persons stole what did not belong to them they should be taken before the courts and if found guilty, punished. It seems doing that would pull the rug from under this government so they keep the issue of corruption by the past government on the front burner. Buhari and his party were so faithful to Olufunmilade’s strategy during the campaigns that they started believing what they were selling to people. They do not plan to make a turn and start the process of governance. After all, if the people were gullible enough to believe what they were told during the campaign they may be gullible enough to believe the same lies for four years.
One recent development motivates me to come back to this theme. After more than two years of studied silence, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, Minister of Petroleum in the immediate past government, has spoken out. The more one reads her the more it seems that it is the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and indeed the Federal Government of Nigeria that have questions to answer. For those not abreast of the development, Mrs Allison-Madueke made the following points, among others:
- A Federal High Court is reported to have ordered that a sum of $153.3 dollars allegedly stolen by her be forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria, after EFCC to applied to it. She contends that, apart from the fact that she knows nothing about the money she is supposed to have forfeited, the EFCC did not avail her or her lawyers of any notice of hearing. She was, therefore, not represented in court. Did the court that ordered forfeiture exercise due diligence by seeing to it that the supposed defendant was made aware that there was a case against her in the court? This says something about the disposition of Nigeria’s courts towards the dispensation of justice. Ought the court have granted a leave sought by a government agency without giving a supposed defendant the right to controvert what the prosecutor alleged? Mrs Allison-Madueke challenges the EFCC to show that the said money belonged to her, and from which NNPC account the amount was wired to her;
- On June 13, 2016 Acting Director General of EFCC conducted Al Jazeeraon a tour of a “$16 million mansion” he purported to have “discovered in the Asokoro District of Abuja to underscore EFCC’s allegation that Mrs Allison-Madueke is a treasury looter. After the EFCC later discovered that the house belonged to a company owned by a Kola Aluko, the Acting EFCC Director General did not bother to revert to the public to own up to the fact that he presented falsehood to it through Al Jazeera;
- EFCC, again, ‘discovered’ a “palatial estate” owned by Mrs Allison-Madueke in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. It turns out that the said palatial estate is an unfinished family house which she duly entered in her Asset Declaration Forms and on which she had expended N394 million;
- There is an attempt to rope her into a scandal known as “Malabu Oil”. Mrs Allison-Madueke reminds Nigerians that “Malabu Oil” predates her emergence as the country’s petroleum minister. She states, categorically, that it is the remit of the Attorney General of the country to sort out issues arising from the transaction. As such, she had no role, personal or official, to play in the process;
- EFCC said, at a point, that discovered a sum of $700 million cash in her home. Haba! She challenges EFCC to tell Nigerians which account it paid the money into. In the alternative, the Central Bank of Nigeria should tell Nigerians that it was in possession of the said amount. She mused why, given the EFCC’s penchant for sensationalism, the agency did not produce a recording of the money as it was being ‘recovered’ from her house?
- Not only EFCC is guilty of Diezani-bashing. In 2014, then Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, wrote a memo to President Goodluck Jonathan alleging that a sum of $49.8 billion could not be accounted for by NNPC. After he was taken to task, he reduced the alleged ‘missing’ sum to $12 billion, which he upped to $20 billion. Part of the money Sanusi alleged could not be accounted for were sums paid as subsidies on kerosene, a household cooking fuel favoured by the lower classes. Sanusi based his query on a memo from Late Umaru Yar’Adua, as President. In her explanation, the Yar’Adua memo was never given effect to because labour unions resisted the removal of subsidy on petroleum which, they argued, would further impoverish the Nigerian poor;
- According to Allison-Madueke, she was passionate about reforming Nigeria’s oil and gas sector to deliver value to the country in a transparent manner. She says “in late 2011, due to incessantly high subsidy figures which we knew were coming from unscrupulous marketers who were dealing in Round-tripping at the expense of the Nation, I removed all PPPRA throughput marketers, amongst whom we believed were those undertaking Round-tripping and substantially raising the cost of subsidising petrol for the entire Nation.” The former minister did not attempt to dodge responsibility for her actions. She takes responsibility for attempting to remove subsidies on petroleum products in January, 2012, which was stoutly resisted by Nigerians, and on which the government had to back down;
- In the same January 2012, the former minister got the approval of President Jonathan to invite EFCC to NNPC to put the whole subsidy program under a microscope so as to advise on how the apparent fraudulence embedded in it could be curbed. As she took responsibility for an action that did not rub well with Nigerians, she did not shy away from taking credit for actions she took that made it possible for Nigerian nationals to break into the oil and gas sector of the economy, and that it was the template that she developed that has been adapted and used in many countries. This she takes pride in;
Diezani Allison-Madueke’s defence of her name resonated so well after she averred that “it is saddening that after eight years of serving my country, my experience as a public servant has been fraught with continuous malicious castigation and character assassination, all in the name of ‘personal vendettas’……….it is therefore sad and distressing that in spite of all that I tried to do in the best interest of our Nation, I continue to be faced with constant demonization, unproven accusations and deeply personal insults.”
I do not know Mrs Allison-Madueke from Adam, but her narrative comes across as far more credible than what we hear from sundry government sources, including EFCC. The lady lives in the United Kingdom, with which Nigeria has a repatriation treaty. To be able to successfully apply for repatriation, however, Nigeria must make its case before a court in the UK, and unless the court agrees that a prima facie case has been established against her no such order would be given. It does take much leap of imagination to conclude that the Nigerian Government, including EFCC, do not possess any damning evidence against Allison-Madueke. Continuing to drag her name in the mud through the media is a desperate resort by a government that has found it impossible to settle down to govern the country. The government has shown that it is completely clueless as to the way forward. If the former minister is guilty of any crime, or if there is strong evidence to suggest that she is culpable in a crime against the country, the process of having her extradited to answer charges against her should be activated without much ado. If no such evidence exists, the government and its functionaries should do the decent thing – apologise to her and keep shut thereafter.
Coupled with its cluelessness is a reluctance, rather unwillingness, to seek help from those who know about the way forward. That Nigeria is blessed with an abundance of knowledgeable men and women who can hold their own anywhere in the world is not debatable. I make bold to say that at the center of power, the President’s kitchen cabinet, are characters not known to be the brightest that Nigeria can leverage at this time.
What this government has succeeded in doing, more than anything else, is de-marketing Nigeria. The most negative things are pushed to the world about Nigeria and her citizens, and it is no wonder that the country’s economy is in the doldrums. Enough of governance by distractions! Thank God, 2019 is not too far away.
Written by Olanrewaju Aderemi Obafemi.
